Introduction
No part of New York City's economy has greater potential for long-term growth than the cluster of jobs, companies, and industries known as the green economy. The massive public and private sector investment expected for years to come to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in thousands of buildings, expand infrastructure to enable the switch to electric vehicles (EVs), develop renewable sources of energy, and prepare
the city for climate change is expected to sustain 400,000 jobs in the five boroughs by 2040, according to a recent report by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the Mayor's Office of Talent and Workforce Development.
The expected job growth will not only provide a much-needed boost in employment, but also a major new source of middle-class jobs. A flourishing green economy may be the best chance in a generation to expand access to well-paying career opportunities for New Yorkers of color and individuals from low-income communities—many of whom have borne the brunt of environmental injustices for decades.
But while there has been job growth in several parts of the green economy in recent years, our research suggests that New York City’s green economy is not yet anywhere close to fully charged. In 2023, for example, there were just 2,184 unique jobs postings in the core green economy in New York City, according to the Center for an Urban Future’s analysis of data from labor-market analytics firm Lightcast. While only one other U.S. city had more (Houston, with 3,127), these core green jobs—the jobs that play a direct role in reducing emissions and transitioning away from fossil fuels—accounted for only a small fraction of New York City’s job growth. During the same period, there were 70,002 postings in health care, 56,314 in finance and insurance, 46,912 in tech, and 18,318 in the management, scientific, and technical consulting services sector.
Even as the core green economy remains relatively small, a growing number of employers are seeking candidates with a variety of green-related skills—from architects with expertise in designing energy efficient structures to HVAC technicians knowledgeable about heat pumps. In total, employers posted 22,070 jobs in 2023 seeking candidates with specific green skills, up from 19,566 in 2019—a 12.8 percent increase. Notably, most of this growth is located in industries outside the core green economy, including architecture and engineering (+314 annual job postings compared to 2013, finance (+354 postings), and colleges and universities (+491 postings). The exception is electric power, which includes the core green economy industries of solar and wind (+848 job postings).
A majority of the industry leaders and experts we spoke with in New York City’s building sector—which, according to NYCEDC, accounts for well over half of all jobs in the city’s green economy—say that job creation connected to green economy investments has so far been modest. Indeed, there are clear signs that the pace to electrify buildings has been slow. One of the key components of a building retrofit designed to reduce emissions is the installation of new heating and cooling systems—an undertaking that requires a permit from the New York City Department of Buildings. But Just 2,021 permits to install new heating and cooling systems have been filed since 2017, including only 415 for commercial buildings and 405 for multifamily residential buildings. Similarly, while there has been a notable increase in the installation of heat pumps, less than 1 percent of all housing units statewide have one.
The solar industry has arguably been the fastest growing part of the green economy in the past few years, but our research suggests its rapid growth has accounted for only about 750 new jobs over the past decade. And while the offshore wind industry has the potential to create thousands of jobs in the years ahead, offshore wind firms with a presence in New York City generally have just a handful of employees here today.
To be sure, these are early days in the sector’s evolution, and there is enormous opportunity going forward. Indeed, numerous green economy companies we interviewed say they expected to double their employment in the coming years. At the same time, Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul have launched an impressive set of programs and initiatives designed to bolster job creation in the green economy—including the Adams administration’s recently launched Green Economy Action Plan.
But it is by no means a given that New York City will fully unlock the sector’s massive potential and create the tens of thousands of inclusive green jobs that are eminently possible. Indeed, this report details 17 specific challenges that are currently holding back job growth in the city’s green economy. At the same time, the potential for a major federal pullback from green economy investment poses an additional obstacle to New York's continued growth.
Going forward, city and state policymakers will need to address these barriers. And while government leaders in New York should continue to innovative with new policies and programs, what’s needed most is a full court press to make sure New York fully implements key initiatives already underway, starting with the landmark Local Law 97. Meanwhile, to ensure that a significant share of the city’s future green economy jobs are accessible to New Yorkers of color, New York policymakers will need to support the city’s small but growing ecosystem of green economy workforce training organizations and the City University of New York (CUNY), and set them up with the resources, data, and employer insights needed to succeed.
Supported by a grant from JPMorgan Chase, this report provides a new level of detail about the emerging green economy in New York City and the workforce development system now in place to prepare New Yorkers for these jobs. The report, which was informed by more than 150 interviews conducted through August 2024 with company leaders, human resource directors, climate policy advocates, industry and trade association leaders, sustainability finance experts, leaders of workforce development programs and other education and training providers, and New York City and State government officials, is organized into two main parts:
- Green Economy Job Growth Shows Major Promise but Is Still in the Early Stages of Development. Based on dozens of interviews with small and large employers across the city’s green economy, it unpacks where job growth is already occurring in green economy fields, details the types of jobs that are being added, and fleshes out which areas employers anticipate growing over the next few years. Importantly, it shines a light on 17 of the most important challenges to job creation in New York City’s emerging green economy.
- Realizing the Potential of New York City’s Green Jobs Training Ecosystem. The report features the first interactive map of workforce development programs that are preparing candidates for green economy jobs in New York City, with data-backed profiles of 32 training and education programs (see page 35). Although the landscape of providers and programs is complex and evolving quickly, this report offers the most detailed snapshot to date of New York’s existing green economy workforce programs. This part of the report also includes new analysis about strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and opportunities in the city’s green jobs training ecosystem.
Much of this report focuses on the opportunity to New Yorkers from underserved communities to well-paying jobs in the emerging green economy. But there will be limited opportunities for New Yorkers in the green economy if the city doesn’t maximize the potential for job creation. Our research identifies 17 specific challenges that are either already holding back job growth in the city’s green economy or which will likely limit future growth if not addressed.
The 17 challenge areas, which are outlined in more detail later in the report, include:
- Electrifying buildings is one of the best opportunities to create new green economy jobs, but only a tiny fraction of commercial and multi-family buildings in NYC have taken this step.
- The economics of undertaking Local Law 97-mandated building retrofits have gotten more challenging for many property owners due to rising interest rates and hybrid work.
- The current penalty structure for buildings not meeting Local Law 97 requirements is unlikely to incentivize widespread compliance.
- A shortage of electricians and HVAC technicians threatens to limit the number of buildings retrofits, and slow solar installation projects.
- Not enough property owners are accessing the technical assistance that exists to support building retrofits.
- The state’s limited transmission capacity will make it difficult to electrify thousands of buildings and support a broad-based shift to electric vehicles.
- Renewable energy needs to be connected more swiftly to the city’s electric grid to meet growing demand.
- The city lacks affordable and accessible space for electric vehicle charging development.
- Current infrastructure for electric micromobility is inadequate.
- The cost of electric vehicles is still too high to incentivize broader adoption.
- The city and state can do more to enable the uptake of solar across its one million buildings.
- New infrastructure is needed to enable the city to grow as an offshore wind servicing hub.
- “Onshore” trades will need to be re-skilled to do “offshore” work.
- Financing offshore wind and other clean energy projects has become more challenging.
- The city lacks the space for a localized sustainable waste management sector.
- The city lacks the mandates and incentives that would create a more robust market shift to sustainable waste management.
- Budget cuts to community composting will slow progress toward organics diversion.
7 Key Takeaways About the Programs Preparing New Yorkers for Jobs in NYC's Green Economy:
Addressing these challenges will be key to boosting future job growth in the city’s green economy. But simply creating jobs is not sufficient. Additional actions will also be needed to ensure that New Yorkers of color and those from low-income backgrounds are able to access the well-paying jobs being created. Fortunately, New York City is home to dozens of workforce training programs that prepare unemployed and underemployed New Yorkers for a range of green-economy jobs, including programs at CUNY. But our report also identifies some challenges gaps in this training ecosystem, including:
- Given the relatively modest size of the green economy today, there is a risk that without significant and sustained growth, providers could end up training candidates for jobs that don’t exist.
- If providers have the data and insights needed to align programs with demand, there is untapped potential to prepare more New Yorkers for many of the jobs outside the core green economy that are increasingly in search of candidates with green-related skills. But many of these roles typically go to candidates with college degrees, making CUNY’s role particularly critical.
- Most of New York City’s green workforce training programs are small in scale. We identify 32 organizations offering at least 45 unique green economy training programs today, serving a total of about 7,900 New Yorkers each year—or about half of the total number of jobs seeking candidates with green skills annually. But four programs alone account for more than half of the total slots (4,477), and 17 programs serve under 100 New Yorkers annually.
- New York’s green workforce training programs are more heavily concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
- More than half of New York City’s green job workforce training programs have a focus on construction and building operations, and those programs cannot keep up with demand.
- Over the next five years, training organizations anticipate escalating need for new workers who can electrify buildings, manage building automation controls, conduct energy audits, and work in offshore wind.
- Funding is needed to upskill experienced, existing workers whose jobs are changing.
- Several training programs are struggling to cover the cost of stipends, as well as provide wraparound services for participants.
The good news is that the administrations of Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul, as well as the City Council and State Legislature, have all taken major steps to foster a stronger and more equitable green economy. The Adams administration’s Green Economy Action Plan, released in February 2024, details 63 city commitments to help make New York a global leader in the green economy while integrating talent development—a major step forward in the city’s approach to cultivating equitable economic growth. This includes promising new efforts to help prepare New Yorkers for green careers, including the establishment of green training facilities in every borough. Governor Hochul has greenlit several efforts to meet the state’s ambitious climate goals, including an action plan to expand the renewable energy sector and obtain 70 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
However, even more is needed at the state and local level, especially given the likelihood that the federal government may significantly curtail investment in the sector in the years ahead. This report’s top policy recommendation is not to launch a shiny new initiative, but rather to pull out all the stops to ensure full implementation of Local Law 97, ensuring that thecity is actually producing the jobs needed to realize the opportunity for new green economy careers and upward economic mobility. On the workforce side, the mayor and City Council will have to allocate ample funding in upcoming budget cycles to implement the key commitments in the Green Economy Action Plan, starting with fully funding the borough-based training centers.
A second key recommendation is to better leverage the City University of New York (CUNY) by launching a major new capital investment to build a greener university, combined with a first-of-its-kind initiative to tap CUNY’s students to achieve this—preparing them for green economy careers in everything from architecture, engineering, and materials science, to finance and capital planning, to the building trades.
Crucially, these investments will have to work in tandem with policies designed to overcome the many barriers that exist to further job growth, or else run the risk of training New Yorkers for jobs that fail to materialize. Among other things, New York should launch a green economy data dashboard to help workforce development organizations better understand the growth potential of the green economy at the level of specific sub-industries and occupations, and to ensure that economic and workforce development investments are closely aligned.
This report details the opportunity blooming in the city’s nascent green economy, provides analysis of the most pressing challenges that stand in the way of realizing job growth, examines the current size and scope of green economy-aligned workforce training programs, and concludes with achievable recommendations for realizing the full potential for job growth and economic mobility in New York City’s emerging green economy.
